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It is with a heavy heart that we tell you all that our dear staff member Tonibunny, who was with SSo from the start and was a good friend to many here, passed away Thursday night.

She was a wonderful friend to many members of the site. She readily shared all her knowledge and experience of scoliosis and was always willing to help and encourage anyone who reached out to her. When she wasn't sharing her experience of scoliosis, she shared her love of books, art, and music. She had a love of learning and life that was infectious.

Re: i'm not alone

Hi Freddie. Sorry to hear you struggle. I think you defo should seek some help, get x rayed and see a scoliosis/kyphosis consultant. I'm in the middle of it all. I suffer from scheuermanns and I'm at 75 degrees. Got my lung tests (hopefully among other pre surgery assessments) in 3 months. A bit longwwait but sometimes NHS takes a while.
My employers weren't helpful and eventually had to give up working last year.
All the best mate.

Re: i'm not alone

Yes storm nhs is national health service. Wow never before have I been told I look in damn great shape so thank you. at school I was always very skinny, as much as I ate I could never put on weight. My ex-wife used to complain constantly asking me to go to the gym and put on weight, but even when I did I just ended up with even worse back pain so would give up after a few months. If I am below 80 degrees then I guess that rules me out for surgery on nhs. My back hurts like hell, I've been working hard to correct my posture, walk tall, started yoga, but walking in an unnatural posture as opposed to head down, avoiding eye contact, seems to make things worse. My wife seems to think my posture has improved though but is it really healthy taking painkillers every day for the rest of my life? One idea I did have if the nhs said no was to travel to india where thresholds are much lower and uk trained spinal surgeons will be more likely to agree to operate. Do you know of anyone who has done this?

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Your back looks almost identical to the way mine used to look! Not a terrible curve but enough to get in the way of course. Mine was in the 70s. The angles will be all over the place since people use different datums for measurement. one doc said I was 67 another said I was 88 LOL.

Re: i'm not alone

hey freddie,

looking pretty good mate, i know confidence is hard to come by at times but try not to be too hard on yourself. ive seen plenty of people much younger than yourself in much worse shape.

how are you finding yoga? weight training combined with a solid stretching routine can work wonders. you said you have tried lifting weights before.. did you follow a specific back routine? what exercises were you doing exactly?

people with our condition really need to strengthen our foundations, without solid, flexible legs the pain in our back can really intensify. like anything, if the ground work isnt solid anything above will become weak and have to try and take the brunt of what the foundations should be taking.

i made the silly mistake of focusing too much on weight lifting (love it though, really has become a life saver for me) and didnt bother to stretch at all. i couldnt figure out why with such a strong physique (my deadlift/squat/bench were all 3 plate) i still couldnt hold myself up or walk longer than 5 minutes without sharp pain, it was because everything was so tight that all the muscles i had really counted for nothing.

surgery may be your only answer, but i honestly believe with the right exercises and correct stretching people with our lvl of curviture can really reduce our lvls of pain, im happy to say that since i started really focusing on stretching im pretty much pain free!

Re: i'm not alone

Hang in there. Wait for the specialist tells you what he thinks. By the way just so you know I would kill for the spine you have now. My is triple twisted and quite pronounced. It is disgusting so I just don't look at it. People say rude crap in public and I heard it all when I was younger. Do you suppose those idiots think we are hunchbacked and deaf? It is abundately clear they are ignorant and ugly in their own way. I occaisionally will tell them so by saying that my ugly is all in my bones while their ugly has consumed their brain and soul.

I am 61 years old and the resident SSO fossil. I live in Oklahoma,USA with my husband Allen. We have one daughter Jae and she has three kids.Our grandkids are: Aidan is8. He's the one pictured in my current avatar. Jenna Jean is 7 and Ryan Allen is just 4 It's full time chaos here! I was diagnosed in 1965 at 14 years with Kyphoscoliosis and 2 curves measuring 68 and 63 degrees. My last measurements were in 2004 at 155, 88 and 55+ degrees. I have never had surgery or bracing so I now am on full time oxygen and use a Non Invasive Ventilator at night. at night.

Re: i'm not alone

Thank you for the kind messages. I chickened out of seeing a specialist the main reason being that financially it's hopeless as I'd have to give up work for 6 months. Plus I couldn't bear the thought of being told no again. I'll change my mind once someone says something g nasty to me in the street, been a while, I avoid late night drunks as I'm an easy target.

Re: i'm not alone

Hi Freddie, I just wanted to say that I don't think your back looks bad at all. I can totally understand about the pain issue but I would say that I had this surgery for scoliosis and pain and it was really the pain that spurred me into the operation, which I now regret severely as I am in tons more pain, more problems than before and unable to live my life as I used to, let alone work. Just be sure that you are doing it for the right reasons and not just to please other people because the outcome can be a lot worse than you have now. Sorry, just being honest. xx

Re: i'm not alone

My son had a girlfriend a few years ago who was similarly expressive about how his back looked. He opted out of surgery and had her removed instead and it's done wonders for his self-confidence.

That's not to say that he doesn't still wish that he looked more like other people, but he goes swimming without his shirt on (there's a thread here where we discuss buying men's bathing suits - he opted for bright red to distract from his back), and he wears t-shirts and other form-fitting clothing.

He may still get surgery some day - his curve is in the surgical range - but he no longer feels as if he *needs* to get surgery in order to get on with his life.

I don't want to downplay the emotional side of having kyphosis, I think it's really hard not looking like other people, and I know that men, in particular, often have a history of being teased. But having a non-supportive mate makes all of it seem much much worse then it may actually be. At the height of my son's difficulties with his girlfriend, he was consumed about all of his asymmetries - he had me photograph his face from both sides because he was certain that one side was handsome while the other was hideous. To me, they looked pretty similar. Post-girlfriend, all of that obsessiveness about appearance is gone. He's far more gentle on himself.

You deserve to be treated well, no matter how significant your curve is or is not, IMO.

Re: i'm not alone

Re: i'm not alone

Yes I tend not to think about it too much until someone actually says something or gives me a strange look then I start obsessing over it again. I remember years ago when i dabbled with online dating. I remember reading some girls' profiles where they actually said 'no Hun....... please'. Do women really care that much? Just wondering, if my wife doesn't change her attitude may be single again soon.

Re: i'm not alone

Originally Posted by freddie53

Do women really care that much?

I think it really just depends on the woman and the relationship. My husband is about two inches shorter then I am. For some women, that would be a complete deal breaker. For me, it doesn't make any difference at all (although, since we've started taking tango classes, it does make some of the moves harder )

But, really, none of us are perfect - that doesn't mean that we deserve not to be treated well. I'm certainly not as thin as I was when we got married, but if my husband asked me to wear more clothes around the house because he found the added weight unattractive, he'd soon find his things piled up neatly outside the front door. We expect our mates to be supportive, pretty much no matter how we look. We may not say "for fatter for thinner, for straight spine or curved spine" in our vows, but that's certainly the intention of "for better or for worse". We love them, accept them, no matter how they look.